Little Green Footballs

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Rather than slavering over the possibilities of a race war like the majority of LGF readers, we'd like to applaud Australian MP Harry Quick for standing up to be counted. He's refusing to follow the 'see no evil' tactic of Kim Beazley and John Howard and states clearly that the root causes of the recent troubles is the racism embedded in Australian culture. Not that this will ever get reported on LGF or the failing Pajamas Media, unless of course it's to blame the victims.

A federal Labor MP has contradicted his party leader Kim Beazley and Prime Minister John Howard by blaming racism for the violence in Sydney that led to more arrests overnight.

Federal Tasmanian MP Harry Quick says racism is embedded in Australian culture and federal politicians should not ignore it.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley has said the Sydney clashes are "simply criminal behaviour" and Mr Howard says he does not accept there is underlying racism in Australia.

Mr Quick says political leaders should not gloss over the issue.

"I think leaders of all political parties who have put their opinions on the public record need to look seriously at the underlying issues," he said.

"Because in Sydney especially, I am in Melbourne today and I'd like to think that Melbourne has a totally different attitude but in Sydney there is overt racism.

"It really concerns me that Australians - if you scratch them you discover a racist and this is one of the sad things about Australia, despite us espousing multiculturalism, deep down we have this fear of people who are different from us," he said.